According to the decisions taken by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK), on the meeting dated 31.03.2020, regarding freezing registration for the 2019-2020 Academic Year Spring Semester, students enrolled in associate, undergraduate and graduate degree programs will be able to request their registration in the Spring Semester of the 2019-2020 Academic Year to be frozen without counting from the maximum period due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition, our students state that under the current circumstances they are having difficulties in accessing or following the course content while they can follow some other courses due to the differences in the courses. Those students request their enrollment for the semester to be continued so that the courses they can access can be assessed; however, they demand not to be responsible for the courses they cannot follow. Upon their request, the students will be entitled to drop the courses they are unable to follow through distance education for the 2019-2020 Academic Year Spring Semester.

Upon our students’ requests for Freezing Registration and DROP, the procedure will be as follows :

(a) The students submit their request via e-mail to the Department Chair and add their advisor to the cc list.  (the e-mail must be sent from the address provided  by the University as in @metu.edu.tr)¹

(b) The advisor states whether s/he approves the request by selecting “reply all” option ¹

(c) Department Chair evaluates the request and the appropriateness of the process and relay the request to the relevant Dean's Office / Institute Directorate¹  

(d) Faculty / Institute Boards evaluate the appropriateness of students’ Freezing Registration and Drop requests and submit the decisions taken in groups to the Registrar’s Office (OİDB).

(e) Our students can submit their requests for Freezing Registration or Drop until 05 June 2020 to the Department Chairs.

• Freezing Registration requests of the students who are in the thesis stage will be evaluated in detail by their thesis advisors in line with the relevant decision of YÖK. Requests will be evaluated and resolved at the University Board of Directors “provided that the theses are eligible in terms of topic, quality and nature and whether the students can continue working on their theses through distance education and benefit from registration freezing procedures” along with the explanation and opinions of their advisors.
• Withdrawal procedures remain valid within the scope of regulations.  
• The course(s) that are dropped will not appear in the transcript. Unlike withdrawal procedure, there is no obligation to replace courses in the following semesters, so there is no need for follow-up. The demands of our students to drop the course will be considered as a flexible and advantageous method in the current period.

¹ These procedures should be carried out with the internal organization of our Department Chairs, based on factors such as the total number of students in our departments, the number of students per advisor, the estimated number of Freezing Registration or Drop requests. At all events, it is the responsibility of the Department Chairs to make all requests and approvals, which will be carried out remotely due to the current circumstances,  documentable as described above and ready to be submitted with complete documentation to the Faculty / Institute Executive Board and it is the Deans and Institute Directorates’ responsibility to coordinate the process.